to Land

38 • From Lab to Land
Conclusion
This report shows the diverse roles that women
have played in the development and extension
of push–pull technology. It presents lessons from
the technology’s Kenyan heartland, where spread
has been rooted in women’s groups, through
Uganda and to Tanzania and Ethiopia, where
push–pull must take slightly different pathways
to reach women through different systems of
gender relations in agriculture.
Lessons from the first 20 years of push–pull
dissemination show that women can take up
push–pull when they have land, labour, tools
and seeds, and enough decision-making power.
If, as push–pull farmers, they are supported as
peer educators, advocates and role models,
they can enable others to adopt, as well as often
strengthening their social position within their
and households. Maintaining the high levels of
uptake by female farmers requires an agenda
for interlinked changes in a number of different
areas.
• Improve access to, participation in and
benefits from push–pull for women, ensuring
that they have the necessary capacities and
assets to take up the technology.
• Seek partnerships with the structures and
interventions that exist to support women
on the ground – governmental and nongovernmental
– in particular to support
women from labour-poor households to adopt
through work on communal group plots.
• Use technology dissemination pathways that
are appropriate and affordable to women and
men, respecting the diversity of their social
and economic contexts.
• Continue with ongoing direct efforts and
policy advocacy to get more women into
scientific and agricultural careers, in Africa and
overseas.
“This programme made us change as women,” says Kenyan farmer Paskalia Shikuku. “Women are now at the front in this
area. At barazas, women are standing and teaching. We have to fight, not just wait to be given things.”